1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns a method for correction of scatter radiation fields in radiography and computed tomography with flat panel detectors.
2. Description of the Prior Art
From the printed document M. Zellerhoff, B. Scholz, E.-P. Rührnschopf, T. Brunner: “Low Contrast 3D Reconstruction from C-Arm Data”, Proceedings of SPIE. Medical Imaging 2005, Vol. 5745, 645-655. It is known that the technology of the flat image detectors (FPD) enables a low-contrast resolution in three-dimensional reconstruction of the tissue density distribution with C-arm computed tomography. Due to the large irradiated patient volume in each projection image, the scatter radiation (which contains only very little image information) represents a significant problem. The effects of the scatter radiation are contrast loss, distortions of the quantitative results (such as cupping and artifacts) and increase of the noise. The use of scattered-ray grids is generally not sufficient. Additional correction methods are therefore required that, on the basis of measurements or computational estimations of the scatter radiation, should compensate its negative effects on the image quality.
In the ideal case the Hounsfield units (HU) and the original contrast between soft tissues are adjusted with such correction methods. Although the quality measure of contrast-to-noise remains, an increase of the image noise normally occurs with the corrections, such that the noise increases in equal measure to the contrast. This effect is stronger the greater the relative scatter radiation proportion S/P (scatter radiation to primary radiation intensity) in the data. This also has an effect in the reconstructed images through strong inhomogeneities of the image noise. These inhomogeneities exhibit both increased noise amplitudes (standard deviation of the pixel noise) and an elongated shape (thus irregular fine stripes) and alignment, particularly in directions in which the x-rays are subject to a strong attenuation, for example the longitudinal axes given elliptical cross-sections, soft tissue between bones, and where the relative scatter radiation proportion S/P is also normally relatively large. This inhomogeneity of the image noise due to scatter radiation corrections is referred to in the printed document P. M. Joseph, R. D. Spital: “The Effects of Scatter in X-Ray Computed Tomography”, Med. Phys. 9(4), July/August 1982, 464-472.
For correction of this scatter radiation problem, a simple measurement method was proposed in the printed document J. H. Siewerdsen, M. J. Daily, B. Bakhtiar, D. H. Moseley, S. Richard, H. Keller, D. A. Jaffray “A Simple, Direct Method For X-Ray Scatter Estimation And Correction In Digital Radiography And Cone-Beam Ct”, Med. Phys. 33(1), January 2006, 187-197; for estimation of the scatter radiation intensity within the actual measurement field by interpolation of the measurements of the scatter radiation in the collimator shadow outside of the measurement field, for example. However, since the scatter radiation within the measurement field is not measured, this method is only very crude. The problem of the image noise in connection with the correction is not discussed in this document. The concept of purely computational methods for scatter radiation correction in CT with flat panel detectors (cone beam CT) has been discussed in the early stages in the technical literature. A very general computational correction algorithm is described in the aforementioned article by Zellerhoff et al. and other approaches are also cited. Although the essential image quality aspects are addressed, a quantitative image quality analysis is missing.
A problem of these known scatter radiation correction methods lies in that the “signal-to-noise” ratio or the ratio of scatter radiation intensity to primary radiation intensity is worsened by the scatter radiation correction.